Tuesday 1 April 2014

Orvieto, Umbria - Part 1

After our 3 days in Rome , we rented a car to our next destination, Orvieto in the region of Umbria. We planned to stay in Orvieto for only one night and we thought of it as a place to ‘rest’ in between our drive from Rome and to Tuscany . Had we known how beautiful and lively Orvieto was, we would have stayed another night.

View of Orvieto from a distance
It took us about 15 minutes to actually find our hotel when we arrived into Orvieto. We had booked a hotel called Hotel Virgilio and we asked a local for directions. As we were driving towards our hotel, we looked at the incredible Duomo ahead of us. It was black and white and just stunning. To our surprise, our hotel was actually right beside the Duomo, literally. You couldn’t get a better location than that.

We were so pleased with our hotel when we arrived! Excellent location, friendly staff and very nice rooms. 

The main attraction of Orvieto, the magnificent Duomo!
We checked into our room and asked the front desk for recommendations on where to go for lunch. She immediately said Trattoria La Palomba and gave us walking directions on how to get there. It took us about 10 minutes to walk there and then we entered a nice, cozy restaurant. Being there reminded me that we were now in a different, quieter region of Italy compared to Rome. 
Inside Trattoria La Palomba
I looked at the menu and a few things stood out. I was really craving a traditional antipasto platter with cured meats and cheeses. I also saw that fresh truffled pasta was on the menu and that instantly grabbed my attention so I ordered it. Since I was in Italy, I wanted to indulge as much as I could on these delicate treasures.  My husband chose the squab in a black olive sauce.

The antipasto platter was delicious. The cheese and meats tasted fresh, and weren’t too salty and it was a great starter to the pasta and squab dish.  

Our antipasto dish appetizer. Soooo delicious!
The pasta dish was hands down the star of the 3 dishes. You could tell the pasta was fresh and homemade. Our server came over to us with a fresh black truffle and a grater and just started grating the truffle onto the beautiful bed of pasta, like it was parmesan cheese. They were generous with the amount of truffle too. As she was grating the truffle in front of me I kept thinking to myself, don’t stop now, keep going.  


The squab was cooked well but we found the olive sauce to be a little on the salty side. But this is dish I’ve never seen at home or at any other restaurant so we were happy we tried something different.

After lunch, we bought tickets to Torre del Moro, which basically took you to the top of the tower so you can get the best view of Orvieto. It was sunny with some clouds in the sky and a little windy but the view was fantastic and we took some great pictures. 

View of the Duomo from the top of the tower
After this, we explored the city and walked up and down the cobblestone streets and into some stores and gourmet shops. Orvieto is also known for their pottery so we found a nice pottery store where we saw the pottery maker hard at work on one of his creations. It's nice to walk into a pottery store and actually seeing the pottery hand made so you see with your own eyes that it is made the old fashioned traditional way. He stopped his work when we walked in and helped us select a nice little bowl. I asked if this was handmade by him and he said yes so I said I would take it. 


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